


Letters Never Sent

by Ewok_Poet



Series: Dyeke/Lil series [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Legends: Corellian Trilogy - Roger MacBride Allen, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Arts, Aurea, Bohemians, Censorship, Children, Corellia, Dissident, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Nubia, Order 66, Politics, Sacorria, Sacorrian Triad, Vagran
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:16:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5739868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewok_Poet/pseuds/Ewok_Poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 40-year-old bohemian calling himself "Lil" travels the Corellian sector, occasionally writing letters and recording messages to "Ranni", the woman he abandoned without a notice, hoping that they will either reunite someday or that, in case of his death, his letters will be passed on to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Entry 01

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first DDC. It's meant to be a companion story to all my non-Ewok stories taking places in civilised parts of the Galaxy, as they take place in a shared micro-universe that does not contradict anything that happens before the Sequel Trilogy and is therefore canon-compliant. If you have not read anything I have written in 2015, you're more than welcome to, though it's not obligatory. Ask whatever you want to know - I will be happy to help.
> 
> Recommended reads:  
> \- The Black Star  
> \- My short stories
> 
> What does DDC stand for?  
> DDC stands for "Dear Diary Challenge" and it's a long-standing tradition on the Jedi Council message board. A character has to keep a diary for one year and update twice a month, or more.
    
    
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:23>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

Kriff this, how do I turn the location feature off?  
  
Ranni, Ranni, Ranni...you must be waiting for me at our secret place and I'm light years away - which is not a metaphor by any means, but how could you know? We always tend to think the worst about those we love, especially in a relationship like yours and mine, where we always had to be so secretive in a world where secrecy has become the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions. Maybe even a twenty-three hundred snack, one of those dehydrated, vile rice crackers that I don't think anybody actually likes. That said, I was offered a bunch of those with some sort of a slightly spiced tea.  
  
I know, I know, Ranni, I said spiced tea. I never learn. And I'm starting to feel slightly shaky, because I don't have any of the you-know-what with me. Ironically, the ship that smuggled me to Corellia was carrying spice, in the same hidden compartment that I was hiding. Imagine that! The emotional torture of the credits I paid to be taken here, and then some! Not to mention that it was the dirtiest ship I have ever seen. Are all interplanetary vessels like this? In that case, I am going to crawl into a corner somewhere and never leave.  
  
I am inclined to say that, if you were subjected to all I will be subjected to - from the destruction of my person that I have to go through willingly, to the destruction of my person on THEIR behalf - you would have reached for spiced tea, too. And yes, I reached out to it to enhance my capabilities in the cold and grey world we live in, but that was my decision and nobody else's.  
  
By tonight, you will be angry with me. I can totally see you with that hateful neighbourhood girl. She will complain about her deadbeat boyfriend who has not graduated yet and who parties hard at whichever cantina they had not kicked him from yet; and you, you will complain about me and express your concerns about so many women whom you saw as a threat. Then you will be making all these vague guesses about how I eloped...AS IF. As if I was allowed to marry in the first place...good joke, Ranni, will you tell me another, please?  
  
By the time her boyfriend calls her over and wonders if she was cheating on him, you will both have resolved to never ever trust men again and never ever have children. And I know beings like her: she will eventually have a child with that deadbeat. You...I cannot see that happening. You're too hostile to be in a relationship with anybody other than me and not the type to jump into the arms of whoever comes along next, like your sister did. I can see you as a leader. I can even see you becoming one of THEM.  
  
Wait, are you actually one of them and you never told me about it?  
  
Kriff you, Rani!  
  
Whom am I kidding? I love you. We were never a perfect match, but I love you. I wish I could have left you a datacard or one of those handy cubes, but had I done so, they would have been able to trace me. They eventually will - they can find anybody, in any place. But I would like to live for a couple more years.  
  
I'm a new person. Whatever that means. I have a new life and I am not looking forward to it. I don't even know what my profession will be. I was not schooled for useful things like you and your very important friends.  
  
Please, pat those perky twins for me. And by "perky twins", I mean your niece and nephew, not what the neighbour thought that one time when she slapped me upside my face. But I don't hate her, or her controlling boyfriend. I don't hate your family. I don't hate anybody...  
  
...but I do hate myself. Sometimes. Tonight.  
  
Now I need to think of how to rely this audio recording to you. And I apologise for the noise behind me - there are some large furry creatures that communicate in weeps, meeps and yelps and I can't tell if they're fighting or not. This place is full of creatures I have never seen and tonight, I have to sleep among them, as they're rolling drunk on the cantina floor; as I am not in the right state of mind to be looking for an apartment.  
  

    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:42>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED. ERROR 1337: DATACARD FULL>>>


	2. Entry 02


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:23>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

Well, kriff me, Ranni. Kriff me!  
  
I listened to the data I recorded for you last night and I realised that I was under influence of that spiked, spiced tea. I can imagine you never arriving to my saying this because you threw the playback dongle away after I dropped the _k-blast_. But…you did, so...prog. It's me, again, and I am very, very sober. Today was quite a day.  
  
I cannot remember falling asleep at the cantina last night, but at some point, a man woke me up and managed to drag me and my luggage out of the corner near the 'fresher door, where I had apparently spent the night. He asked me what I was doing in one of the worst possible places to be on the whole planet and added that I was lucky not to have been robbed. I was scared, Ranni. They were always telling us about how hard it is to make it alive on Corellia, with all the violence, debauchery and lack of discipline. And then...he appears and he's nice. I bet you would be confused, too! Not to mention that nobody attempted to kill me yet..?!  
  
He took me out of the cantina. His son was waiting by a hovering speeder outside. After hours spent drowning my sorrow in suspicious beverages, I was blinded by the light outside…  
  
…and snow. It snowed...a lot. Do you remember how we met? Of course, you do, unless she told you to forget me. It was snowing, they were chasing me and then, there was you – the big girl with an authority who kicked the poodoo out of them. I remember being convinced that you were much older than me, perhaps even one of the teachers. Isn’t that funny, Ranni, to mistake somebody five months younger than you for a teacher? And I never had the courage to share this story with you, the coward that I am.  
  
Anyway…the boy asked me if I was a Clone Wars refugee. I shrugged. I was about to ask him what kind of “clones” he was talking about, and then I remembered that field hospital back at home, where a lot of troopers looked suspiciously similar. I did not realise they were not ours back then! Not to mention that nobody ever told us about devastating wars raging through the Galaxy. And now, this youngling tells me that the Republic is fighting Separatists. I don't understand how they would physically separate from the Galaxy, as the intergalactic void is increasing and all...how do you move planets, Ranni?  
  
And I told him all that, yes. I asked him how one would go about moving planets and systems to another Galaxy. The youngling was bemused.  
  
"Were you frozen in carbonite or something?" He tells me, and I have no idea what that means. He explains that I did not appear aware or how the universe worked. I’m not sure if I like that.  
  
Then his father overhears our conversation and tells him to shut the kriff up.  
  
This is where they finally introduce themselves to me. The father is Jax Pavan. He says that there are millions, if not billions of people sharing his name. Then he proudly adds that his son's name is unique. The young man begged him not to tell me anything beyond "Dale", but his father proudly said that Dale is short for Dandelion Roba. The earlier is a plant, the latter is an animal and the Pavans found those words in thesaurus.  
  
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....ahahahaha hahahahaha hihihi...  
  

    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:35>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>
      
    
     <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:39>>

Sorry about that, Ranni. You were always saying that my cackling resembled a swarm of horny grain flies who had some bad corn, so I turned the recorder off. Now, where was I?  
  
So, yes, Jax said that his son’s actual name was Dandelion Roba and…hehe…I’m sorry…a couple of people turned around and poor Pavan youngling looked as if he was about to fall through the ground. I felt sorry for him, but a part of me wanted to laugh - tall as a sturdy Selonian trooperette, there he was, nearly crying. I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but I could barely reach to his buttocks, he’s got to be 190 centimetres tall, Ranni! Luckily, that made him laugh. Now I understand why _important_ beings like you have to deal with the _so-called protocol_. Imagine if you grabbed one of _Them_ like that?  
  
I know I will never have descendants, Ranni...but in an unlikely event that we are back with each other and that you are expecting, promise me that you would never name a child Dandelion Roba!  
  
Jax realised what planet I came from even before I told him. I told him that it was pretty easy to get away yesterday, with a suspicious large shuttle escorted by our glorious ramships heading the same way. Nobody cared about the ugly freighter that I was on. The second question he asked, I had no answer for it, not at all. He asked me what I want to do and where I was going.  
  
He laughed when I told him about my profession and my degree. He studied for a mechanic in his hometown, a place called Tyrenna and he wants Dale to become a mechanic like him, too; because “there are credits in the game, lots of credits”. Then he said that I should find a job as a teacher and that he “knows the right scoundrel” to set me up with a new name. Dale was slightly concerned when he brought up this person’s name, but Jax dismissed his concerns.  
  
They took me to what they called a “much safer neighbourhood” and left me in front of a place called _AurekAurek_.  
  
"Corellia is the best place to disappear in times like these. Good luck!" Jax told me as he climbed back into his speeder. Dale waved to me until they disappeared from sight – or I like to think that he did, these speeders are actually fast - and then, only then did I realise that I forgot to ask for their comm codes.  
  
So, I’m sleeping in what appears to be a hostel, told them I was twenty and they believed me, and tomorrow, I’m waiting for my scoundrel to help me get a work permit and whatever else I may need to blend in. We’ll see what happens next.  
  

    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 02:22>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Jax Pavan has nothing to do with THE Jax Pavan of the Coruscant Nights books. I read that the name was common, so...yeah.
> 
> Dandelion Roba "Dale" Pavan is 13 here and accompanying his father. In the coming years, he will become a drummer and eventually wind up playing drums for Steamy Wasaka Stew (SWS). You can see a 20-something Dale in Radiophonic Heart and a 30-something Dale in chapter five of The Black Star.


	3. Entry 03


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:23>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: GUS TRETA INNER MARKET STATION, GUS TRETA>>

 

Why is it 1:23 every time I start recording, Ranni?

 

If I was in your huge library at home, there would’ve been your ancient chrono ticking behind me...that awful little thing from the days we were allegedly brought to the Sector by the Celestials, looming over me. You know, I never believed that story. That chrono would have been millions of years old and it would have not been a chrono in the first place. And you, you were trying to tell me that Celestials invited chronos…or something.

 

I’m looking at Corellia from a durasteel window. It’s a pretty planet, you know? Much prettier than ours. It has oceans and continents! Sure, it’s frightening to a certain extent, but it's beautiful! Not to mention that I can gawk at it as much as I want to and I won't be arrested for it.

 

I apologise for this digression, Ranni. I need to tell you what happened throughout the day and explain why I’m here. I’m slightly hungry right now and I have no idea what time of the day it actually is where I am, so I’m longing for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, anything. But my priority is you.

 

In the morning…yes, I really woke up at seven in the morning, me out of all beings, Ranni…do not look at me like that, because I know you are…the owner of the AurekAurek hostel brought me food. The bread was awful. What are they doing to our beautiful dust corn when it reaches other planets? What do they mix it up with?

 

So, the owner…her name is Klootil Geelmen and she introduced me to her husband, Tiodre. He was not particularly chatty, he had to take these two magnificent creatures with long things on their heads to a place called Lastdark, where they were to perform for somebody called Blobbo the Hutt. Klootil herself did not like the way he was looking at them, so they ended up arguing. Tiodre implied that he does not think they will be coming back and she asked him how he can take part in this, then. His response was that some people’s fate is “just like that”.

 

Me, I had no idea what was going on, so I sat in the hostel’s large den, overlooking the snowy fields outside. The tall buildings of the city centre were visible in the distance, though it was really, really foggy.

 

Tiodre and Kloo’s children were already done with breakfast and they were playing nearby - a toddler named Aerenna and a fourteen-year-old named Aryan. They have bright red hair, unlike their parents. And they’re quite smart. Kloo joined me after she sent Tiodre away and we talked about the younglings. She had nothing but praise for her eldest! Aryan had been to Coruscant, she said. He’s in a special programme for gifted youth and he says that he wants to be a xenobiologist.

 

Now, I was not convinced that it was the right career choice, the same way I never thought that gemology was for you, Ranni. There was something weird in the way Aryan was looking at me. Perhaps you are not the best comparison, because you never seemed particularly interested in the gems, nor you ever told me much about your business…and he, on the other hand, seemed way too interested in…me. I could swear that he stared at my right ear and then he pulled a hair from my shoulder!

 

I asked him why and he said that he wanted to see if I was the same as the Drall from, well, would you have guessed it, Drall. Kloo was slightly angry at first, but then she rolled her eyes and said that Ary gets carried away so easily. He nodded and offered to show me teeth, nails and hair he picked from other non-Humans. I politely declined the offer. Then Aerenna walked up to me and sat on my lap. That was unpleasant, Ranni, she’s almost as big as me and quite heavy! The only good thing about this was Ary telling me that the creature I saw earlier was a species named “twilight”. I thought there were only three species in the Galaxy...but yes, ever since Zizi told me that there were so many more, I’ve been hoping to meet some of them…

 

…but I should not have said that to Ary. He said that he could name a couple of thousands of them and he went on and on about it. In Aurebesh order…

 

…and that’s how I got stuck with a toddler and an adolescent, until Jax and Dale picked me up early in the afternoon. They explained that we will leave Corellia and I was slightly worried. There came Jax’s long explanation about how I need to re-enter the planet from a different point and pose as a Clone Wars refugee, and that their friend Bastard will help me.

 

I asked them why they call their friend that, Jax laughed out loud and Dale said that Sacorrian accent is pretty unique. I am not sure why would anybody name their child Bastard, but when a Dandelion Roba tells you it’s normal, then I guess they’re a bunch of grannos, all of them! I thought the non-progressive, mind-damaging granno culture was a Vagran thing and Vagran…is close to home, but far away from Corellia. How do these scary cults spread?

 

They took me in their runabout. I had to sit on Dale’s lap, which was a pretty odd experience. He’s a man, Ranni, a man sitting on another man’s lap is strange! Don’t They send you to Prison for that? At this point, I was wondering if this little ship’s name was actually Bastard, but no, its name is Ysica. So, who or what is this Bastard and why aren’t they telling me more?

 

And then, they left me here. This place is called Gus Treta Inner Market Station and it orbits one of the three little moons… Yes, I am allowed to look at the other two - Gus Talon and "the moon". Funny that, it doesn’t have a name, like the other two. Back at home, we have that Trindello family who had a whole star system named after them and these Corellians cannot name a single moon! And then...just who is crazy there? Us or them?

 

I really need to get something to eat, but it seems like I’m on some sort of a fuelling depot?! And there is a kriffin’ baby with a starfighter toy stuck in its mouth…?

 
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 03:00>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	4. Entry 04


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
     <<LOCAL TIME: 09:54>>
     <<GALACTIC LOCATION: GUS TRETA INNER MARKET STATION, GUS TRETA>>

  
The baby eventually managed to get that fighter plane toy out of his mouth, with a lot of effort on behalf of two people in the fuelling station uniforms. All of that at the expense of my sleep! The amount of times I heard “Wedge, cut it out” and “Wedge, don’t eat it” almost makes me want to order topato wedges. I am not sure if these Corellians appreciate true, progressive Sacorrian sense of humour, but…but it matches! It matches, I swear! That baby is not to be handled raw, he might give you an illness. My ears are still ringing. Why don't they put some nice whiskey into his food? It's not like he was destined to save us all, or anything, he does not really have to be alert all the time.  
  
Eventually, an aloof young girl who introduced herself as Syal brought me a glass of bantha milk and a nerf steak sandwich. It was about time!  
  
And that is how I went from being stuck with an adolescent and a baby to being stuck with…an adolescent and a baby! The girl, she seems distant, but to me, that is a good thing - she is not interested in dismembering me, examining me or whatever. Trust me, I have been sober for two days and that Aryan got me more paranoid than when I was examined by Them. You don't know about that, Ranni, do you? Of course, you don’t, you were probably on their side all along.  
  
Syal asked me where I was from and she was the first Corellian who did not laugh upon hearing it – if these moon-people are true Corellians, that is! Sacorria fascinates her, she said. Any place with beautiful women is fascinating, she thinks. She wants to change her last name, because it's too common. And she wants to be famous. She does not want to be stuck on a space station orbiting a moon, she wants to feel rain on her skin and sunbathe whenever she wants to. She even has a new name made up for herself: Wynssa Starflare. Younglings, they’re so silly sometimes! The next thing you know, she’ll be running away from home or something!  
  
Two hours later, I finally got introduced to Bastard. Bastard Terrik is his name. He had just docked his ship and he was not in the mood for talking, because the trip from Naboo took too long. He only shook my hand and mumbled something about Jax and Dale and their “shady schemes”. A woman and a child stepped out of the freighter and proceeded to the sandwich conservator in the fueling station. And I’m looking at them eat, three tables away from me. Looks like they didn’t want to sit close to me.  
  
But Naboo. Naboo!  
  
Ranni, I am not sure how I will get over the fact that Naboo exists! Sure it was this...this beautiful, mythical place that we learned about at the Academy...okay, you were taking notes and I was passing notes, but still...it was a myth. A planet that is beauty and art, at its finest. Apparently, this is where a “separatist crisis” that begun these “clone wars” had started eleven years ago. Sounds pretty real to me! These two people couldn’t have come from a made-up place, right? Also, it’s shaped like all other planets, it’s not exactly a giant statue. Sometimes I wonder if They…
    
    
     <<LOCAL TIME: 10:08>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 10:10>>
    <<VOICE IDENTIFIED AS BELONGING TO A HUMAN OR NEAR-HUMAN CHILD, AGE 3-5>>
    <<ADD A NAME TAG FOR THIS USER? Y/N>>
    <<NO NAME TAG GIVEN. SPEAKER ADDED TO MEMORY AS HUMAN. USER ADDED TO MEMORY AS HUMAN CHILD #503>>

  
If I become a tooka, do I get to eat tooka food?  
  
The big girl wants to be famous. I want to be famous too. I want to have my own show.  
  
_Brave, brave, little banthas_  
_Brave, brave, little banthas_  
_Brave, brave, little banthas_  
_Serving the Republic, salutes!_  

    
    
     <<LOCAL TIME: 10:22>>
     <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	5. Entry 05


    <<<14 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE LAST LOGIN. REAUTHENTICATION REQUIRED. ENTER NAMECODE!!!>>>
     <<<NAMECODE: *****>>>
     <<<NAMECODE CORRECT. WELCOME, *****>>>
     <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
     <<LOCAL TIME: 16:32>>
     <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

  
Ranni, I am so, so, so sorry! I have not recorded one single message for you since that thing on Gus Treta Station…place. If you could actually hear the most recent one, you would've probably been worried about me. There was silence, followed by somebody singing what I now know is the  _Brave Banthas_  theme and then the recording stopped!  
  
So, as I said fourteen days ago…I was sitting three tables away from a child and a light-blonde Human woman every Human male at the fuel station’s dining area seemed to be staring at…they had arrived to the space station aboard Booster Terrik's freighter. That's right, _Booster_  and not  _Bastard_! Fixing this commcorder's input microphone made me realise how many things I’ve been getting wrong all along. Not progressive at all! Now I have a well-working commcorder, a new name, residency permit and a home in a decent area of the Coronet City…and I have these two strangers to thank for that! And they're with me. Or I am with them. The woman and her child, that is. Life writes some truly, truly strange stories sometimes, Ranni!  
  
All of that happened because the little korrak stole my commcorder, ran to the 'fresher, locked himself inside and had his own little show, until the owner of the fuel station, whose name is Jagged, dragged him out by ear. The youngling's mother came up to him and demanded that he let the boy go. He went on and on about how tough love is the staple of youngling upbringing and how Syal is behaving like a proper young girl. I was this close, thin-whisker-close to telling him that his daughter very likely hates him, but she was right there, across the dining area, cleaning some glasses and she...she gave me this worried look. I nodded and decided to keep our secret.  
  
Once the woman calmed down and I had my commcorder back, the boy tried to pick me up. He kept on singing that dreadful bantha songlet that I must admit is now growing on me and asking me downright strange questions. Unlike his mother, he has dark blonde, almost brown hair and greenish…brownish eyes. He is slightly freckled, too. He said his name was Angel, but his mother just shook her head. Apparently, it's a common joke for him to introduce himself as Angel...His actual name is strangely close to that word, nevertheless. Anjie. The mother is Gwynda.  
  
What happened next would have been hard to describe, but somehow, the commcorder was on in the passive mode when Jagged’s wife, Zena, handed it back to me...so, I have a portion of our first conversation! Ranni, if this ever gets to you, you will learn some facts about not one, but two worlds!  
  
**▲CLIP:START snd.gwynda*anjie▲**  
  
**< <Voice identified as belonging to a Human woman, age 30-35>>**  
**< <Add a name tag for this speaker? Y/N>>**  
**< <No name tag given. Speaker added to memory as Human Woman 1970>>**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “Gwynda, and you?”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Lil. My name is Lil.”**  
  
**< Human child 503> “If I die and become a tooka, do I have to eat tooka food?”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Didn't you ask us that already?"**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “Erenedo! Let the man talk…you’re a man, right? I can never tell, I’m so sorry…”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Yes, I’m a man. Drall women are slightly taller.”**  
  
**< Human child 503> "I’m a boy, too. I’m informative…informal…”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Inferior? That’s not a case with Humans, as far as I know…”**  
  
**< Human child 503> “I’m scum, like daddy.”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Gwynda, I must say I’m puzzled. You say you came from Naboo…”**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “That’s right, Lil. But I’m not from Naboo. Some years ago I went there on a diplomatic mission, as an aide...and I met Aldo."**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Aldo?”**  
  
**< Human child> “Daddy scum!”**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “Aldo was a law student, dark and handsome. As they later told me, a typical ‘Naboo charmeur’. He was in the group that did practice at the senator offices…he offered to show me Theed, Keren and the Lake Country, since senator Amidala, was away. He even took me to see those heroic Gungans! We hung out a lot. One evening, we walked around the ramparts of a sacred place somewhere, it got dark and, you see, I cannot see well in the dark, so he was helping me walk…and one thing led to another. The other aide told the whole group that I broke the rules and they went back home and I remained on Naboo. We had a very granno view on life, so to say. Aldo could play clavi-pian and I am a good singer, we planned to form a band and play in a place called Club Deeja in Keren, but then I got pregnant.”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “And had this little boy?”**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “Yes. For some reason, Aldo’s family insisted that his name begins with an A. Anjie, after Aldo, Arvel, Agne…and then...anyway...Aldo’s mother was getting on my nerves from day one. She believed in all these legends about my people, and said something about how Anjie will be sought after across the Galaxy for being incredibly handsome. Aldo threw in a joke that scared me – that more Naboo charmeurs should be paired with Hapan maidens for a new race of beautiful people.”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Breeding beautiful and charming people? Why would anybody breed people of any kind?”**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> “That, that exactly brought us to what is going on with the Galaxy right now, I agree.”**  
  
**< Commcorder owner> “Women are superior to men in my world, too. But not among Humans, that is why I was puzzled.”**  
  
**< Human woman 1970> "Now I am curious! Tell me more! The rest of my story is boring, anyway...typical young and stupid romdram."**  
  
**▼Clip:end▼**  
  
So, I did.  _I told her more._  It's been two weeks since then and I am not sure what Gwynda meant by "what is going on with the Galaxy right now". But she sure liked hearing about how the Duchesses may or may not allow a common man like me to marry on Sacorria. She asked me if I was married and when I said that I was not, she proposed that we rent a home together and pretend to be in a relationship.  
  
Booster came up with the rest of the plan - we are asylum seekers from the Outer Rim and we became involved during a separatist raid. If Gwynda wasn't only a little bit taller than you, Ranni, this wouldn't have made much sense. I'm barely one metre tall, for progress' sake!  
  
She had to take on a last name, as not all Hapans have them. Despite her anger with Aldo, she decided to go with his, and have the same last name as her son - Mencuri. I was, thankfully, asked to supply a name only. I went with Lidgrain and they believed me that Lil could be a nickname for it. I am getting better with the world outside of our system, yes, I am!  
  
Once back on Corellia, we spent three days in Jari's Memorial Refugee Sanctuary, where we shared a double bed, in a room with ten other beings. Anjie was nervous. He was quiet during the day and then he talked a lot in his sleep and sang that  _Brave Banthas_  theme over and over again! Luckily, that is behind us now - we were allocated to a beautiful apartment in the Orange Sector. The high rise is forty-two levels tall, but we are not too far up, only on the second level.  
  
I am supposed to be looking for some sort of a job. Until then, I am babysitting Anjie while Gwynda works as a hostess at a sabacc joint. By the way, I am not really in a relationship with her...don't worry! I understand that she is exceptionally beautiful, but she's Human. And even if she were a Drall, I would not have been interested, Ranni. There is nobody like you!  

    
    
     <<LOCAL TIME: 18:47>>
     <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

**_"T...this is stranger than I thought. First Wedge Antilles and Wynssa Starflare and then...Anjie Mencuri? The great Mencuri himself? It cannot be, there has got to be another Naboo kid who came to Corellia called that!"_ **


	6. Entry 06


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 23:12>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>
    

_Ranni knows what Lil is like in terms of where he is going in his life. She knows that the structure of his path is more complex than the river crossings of his hometown in the winter time and that his visions are dark like the triple shadow looming over it. Even the brightest light shining from the top of the mountain he shall not mention is essentially dark. Dark like his soul. Dark like her eyes. Dark like the pitch black stripe going down his back._

Yes, that was me, writing about the two of us in third person! Writing was never my strong suit, I am...visual, or whatever. But since you used to help me with essays and I was supposed to learn something from my numerous mistakes, I thought how I never showed you that I am now capable of putting words together and...they actually make sense...so...err...I can write. I think. And I can read it out loud!

As you may have guessed from such a picturesque introduction...I am jobless. After a month on Corellia, I still have not found a job. Quite honestly, it’s not that I was looking…yet. I am trying to blend into the cityscapes of Coronet and start making sense according to whatever doctrine they have on here…the thing is, I found none, so far! There is no codex according to which one should behave here. From what I understand, Gwynda could marry anybody if she wanted to, so could I. There is no such a thing as CESA on Corellia, either. In terms of art, you can do whatever you please. How am I going to learn to do what the kriff I want, Ranni? How?

That was a k-blast, sorry! But sometimes, one has to blast it out, from sheer disbelief! Everything has been so strange to me on here and I am still not sure what is real.

And…Selonians…by Sarcophagus, this has been the biggest shock of my new life so far…they don’t go for artificial insemination here...they don’t even walk around freely! They ALL LIVE UNDERGROUND IN SOME STRANGE TUNNELS. How do they contribute to the progress of this planet is beyond me! There’s a large fat, and by fat I mean gigantic female whom they call a Queen and she can give birth. There’s a very small number of males compared to females and they’re used as breeding stock…almost like how female banthas are always pregnant to give us milk…wait, this did not make much sense…anyway, they never even see the light of the day, they live underground. Other females are one-datacard-minds, they specialise in a task and they don’t make much sense with anything else. And none of them wear clothes underground, not even underpants and...their fur is not thick like ours! This is frightening! They are repressed and forced to be in the nude!

And when I mentioned all that to the nice old next door neighbor – one of our kind, by the way – she said that she once heard about a "dishonoured" Selonian den that was sent to “the prison planet” and “was completely re-sliced”. I gave her a blank stare and asked her about this prison planet. She said that she would tell me about it some other time…well, okay, I can wait. But I’m curious! Her name is Borgiska and she’s close to turning eighty, by the way. A Duchess on the inside without the frightening sense of having a Duchess near you…sorry, Ranni, I know your second cousin is one of those and I have this feeling you’re…let’s not go there.

Another thing I found out is why we have to pose as political refugees: we cannot get out of the Sector, Ranni! The borders are closed, unless it's for transport to medcentres and rare cases of political refugees seeking asylum. Not that one would ever want to leave Sacorria in the first place, but apparently, the person representing the Sector in the Galactic Senate, a Human, as expected, Garm Bel Iblis invoked something called “Meditative Silence” and our borders are closed. I cannot remember what it’s called in Olys Corellisi, for the life of me. As you know, I was never good with languages…

...but neither is Anjie! Now that I basically serve as the youngling minder in this flat due to Gwynda working overtime, I get to spend most of the day with him. It turns out that there is such a thing as Hapan language and he does not speak any of it. I tried to teach him a couple of words of Drallish and all he could remember was Ta’sharr. He’s hopeless! Absolutely hopeless! Somebody will need to attach him to a protocol droid or give him, I don’t know, a cybernetic extension that will teach him languages.

So, now we have our Ta’sharr sessions, every evening, before I put him to bed. He’s missing his “daddy scum”, but he warmed up to me, I think. And yes, I am totally inventing a new Triad Mountain here, Ranni…as you know, I never liked younglings much - apart from your sister's little ones - but I really like this boy. He is hungry for knowledge and each new day is a miracle to him. Are all younglings like that?

I am telling him stories about Sacorria. Funny enough, he does not understand that it's real, the same way I did not grasp that his home planet, Naboo, was real at first! Of course, it's for different reasons - CESA spared us from knowledge on that frightening Separatist Crisis and Anjie, I think he just cannot believe that a perfect place like our world can exist! He thinks young Sacorrian comradettes are better than princesses and he told me that he wants a Sacorrian girlfriend when he grows up...No, I did not tell him that it's illegal for us to be with offworlders! I don't want to break his young heart, not to mention that he does not get the idea of roommates pretending to be lovers that his mother and I have going on, anyway.

He asked if we have a queen or a president. He mentioned that Naboo is ruled by a fifteen-year-old named Apailana, who 'puts things on her head'. I tried to explain how things work with us and Them, Ranni, I really did...but all I did was made him cry. You see, when I explained that nobody has ever seen Them, he was really, I mean really, convinced that they are not real, which made him concerned that Sacorria does not exist and that he will never have his Sacorrian girlfriend...who is very beautiful, he says.

I asked him how she looks like...because I am always fascinated with how Humans see beauty, you know? He grinned mischievously and said that he doesn't know. Why? Ha! _She wasn't born yet!_ That's what he said, the little korrak!

So, how did I calm him down? It was actually simple - I reminded him that I am Sacorrian and since I do exist, then we must all be real! He fell asleep thinking of his future comradette-princess. You would probably tell me that it's cruel of me to let him fantasize like that, since his parents' marriage failed and so did whatever you and I had. But I disagree - he needs to dream. Our dreams are a second life and unlike the second life I was forced to grab onto, one is free to opt out of them by a single blink of an eye.

I think I will be going to bed early myself. Most of the time, I wait for Gwynda to return and then we talk about her work over a mug of tea. She is surprised that I sleep so little, she cannot believe that us Drall evolved from burrowing animals known to hibernate. Neither can I, come to think of it!

But what do I believe in, Ranni?
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 24:05>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CESA stands for Censorship, Education and Scholarship Agency. They have headquarters in the Square Building in Dorthus Tal City, on Sacorria. They were previously mentioned in The Black Star and the short Nolevorution, Of Course!
> 
> Lil is confused so as to everybody can marry anybody on Corellia, because on Sacorria, it’s illegal to marry an offworlder, a Human woman cannot marry without her father’s permission, a Drall man cannot marry without his Duchess’ permission, a Selonian man cannot marry without his Queen’s permission (all of this is Legends-established), and there is no interspecies marriage (fanon).
> 
> He is confused by how Selonians live, not understanding it’s what they are like everywhere other than Sacorria. Sacorrian Selonians were more or less reprogrammed over the course of the twenty-five millennia of the planet’s existence, they only formally have queens, they multiply through artificial insemination and they live just like everybody else. (fanon)
> 
> Borgiska never appeared in any of my stories before, she is new. I’ll let you figure out where I got her name.
> 
> The bit on Garm Bel Iblis and “Meditative Silence”, aka Corellian Sector’s neutral stance in the Clone Wars is borrowed from Legends and, to my knowledge, has not been contradicted in Canon.
> 
> Ta’sharr are story sessions a typical Drall family holds every evening.
> 
> Inventing a new Triad Mountain is a common Sacorrian proverb, similar to our “inventing the wheel”. For more information on the Triad Mountain, check out my fanon entry on Sacorria.


	7. Entry 07


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 13:13>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

My brain is worthy of that laserbrain insult. My ears are going pew pew pew pew, and I am definitely not under influence. As a matter of a fact, I have not had any spice or alcohol for a long, long time now.

Then, what’s the problem? You see...this little boy…Anjie...he sings. And he sings a lot.

Sometimes it's the Brave Banthas song I told you about. Sometimes it's the DOBY adlet from breaks between segments of HoloNet News. Sometimes it's a bunch of unintelligible words in some squeaky language he most likely made up. I am baffled at how he can do that, yet he cannot wrap his little head around the concept of actual means of communication other than Basic.

As if all of this wasn’t making Anjie rather strange already…he does not seem to be interested in what most boys his age like. You know, violent sports and pushing little girls in the fountains on our long walks to the Axial Park and back. I saw boys do that, but he doesn’t. His current fascination is extreme weather. He asked me if I have ever been to Corfai and seen the taiga. Then he set the conservator to the very top of the scale and made a little castle out of frost. He said that it was the world he saw in his dreams and that it's got to be the taiga of Corfai, as he never heard of “any other place that icey”. A huge battle will happen there, he then claimed and walked over his own creation on all fours, to demonstrate how the castle is no more.

Then he said he was feeling unusually cold. I looked at his hands, they were full of these reddish-blue blisters. Stupid me! I forgot that Human children cannot stand such amounts of cold! Proooog there, they have no fur! Luckily, I know where Gwynda holds bacta patches. Now I keep a micro-dispenser of those handy in my waistbag. The way it goes, I will be needing them, too! If he ever finds out about planets such as our glorious system’s own Arcadia, he may as well attempt to make one at home!

We also do normal things, those that most definitely won't result in loss of any available limbs. Anjie likes to draw and paint, which is so refreshingly harmless. The other day, we sat down and painted a piece together. The sincere, clumsy strokes of the brush I assembled for him, against my thin lines. His pastels against my shades of grey. His current fascination with really tall buildings opposing my love for all things natural. We ended up with the strangest painting imaginable - four-legged house-beasts stomping an ice castle and a tree stomping a similar-looking two-legged beast in return! I...I don't even understand! I drew a huge conifer tree and he added the house-beast on its knees. His brain works better sober than mine ever did on you-know-what!

Before I even managed to wash up from the mess we made painting, Gwynda got home from running errands and asked us why we used a piece of her sonic curtain as canvas! Anjie was grinning and I was trying to explain her that it was a misunderstanding, because we wanted to improve the look of our ‘fresher – to use a painting canvas as a sonic curtain. Gwyn shook her head and asked me to make her a cup of caf – her first of the day, my fifth. Anjie asked if he could have some, but we managed to convince him that drinking caf will make him grow a roba tail. He protested, but once we bribed him with a full year’s worth of Brave Banthas, he forgot that he even wanted anything else.

One cup of caf turned into three cups of caf. Gwyn talked about how horrible her job is and I felt bad about it. I did not realise the extent of it until now. Turns out, the sabacc joint is run by the same being whom Tiodre Geelmen took the Twi’lek – not “twilight” – women, too. Blobbo the Hutt. And whatever a Hutt is, it sounds quite bizarre. I would not want to touch it. Their entire bodies have a cold, they’re covered in some kind of phlegm. Yuck! They leave that phlegm everywhere they go. I asked Gwyn to change the topic.

Maybe I shouldn’t have, ‘cause this is where she finally asked me why I’m often talking to myself. I told her that I have a girlfriend at home on Sacorria…then corrected myself and said that I had one. She got it, she understands that these messages are for you…she had something written about Aldo, but her lawyer told her to dissolve that flimsi. Didn’t quite understand if she actually did it, but it’s hers to decide, either way.

She wanted to see a holo of you. Now, that was awkward. Showing her any actual holo of you would’ve clearly identified you and, the only other thing I had…Ranni, please forgive me…was the sketch I did of you when you were sleeping in that noisy attic above the Freedom Speederway and below the city’s Sarcophagus shuttle route. I did not want to share the backstory, that it was our first time together and that we fell through the bed frame and landed in the pile of my comrade’s dirty clothes, which I had tucked underneath, to show you how tidy we were.

Okay, okay, I know, there was mouldy fruit, too and my used brightigum…which got stuck on your rear-end…and…yeah, you did have to wear a skirt and claim it was your fashion statement…for…quite a while. Still, I cherish that night. Nothing can ever wipe my memory of getting off the mattress, taking my coal-stylus and drawing you. Back then, I was too proud…to the point where it was clearly unprogressive. I couldn’t believe that any girl at the university would want me and I was so desperate. Too small, too poor, a local as opposed to you, and the one whose ideas they never cared about. And then, I had a girl! And she was pretty! And I could draw her! And she was actually still there in the morning! And she wanted to see me again! And she was wonderful…don’t deny that you weren’t, Ranni. The warmth of your body next to mine, the whole feeling that there is somebody I belong to and with, and the realisation that I’m not desperate, because the one who just took my ta’devsh actually loves me and did not pity me. My first and only true love.
    
    
    <<PRE-DEFINED STOPTRIGGER DETECTED: CRYING :: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<THE UNIT WILL NOT BE TURNED OFF>>

Sorry, Ranni. I miss our secret encounters, over the course of those twenty years and…I wish they were not secret. I wish there had been a way for me to marry you. Now, I feel like a Jedi Knight. They never marry, right? There’s just no way a married Jedi would not be exposed for breaking the code in our age and time! Never thought they would have something in common with me, a deadbeat spice abuser from Sacorria in exile, and a Drall on top of it. Makes me wonder if we ever had a Jedi. Would They have to approve a child’s departure from our planet?

Wait, Ranni! I can totally see that you would be concerned that I behaved like a complete unprogressive nerf...so, I have to assure you that, no, I didn’t share this much with Gwynda. Our lovemaking was and will always be strictly between you and me. I would never tell her that you were my first and, technically, my only woman. And a big deal. As far as she’s concerned, you’re an artist, too; and we hit it off when we modelled for each other.

I could use a nice dream tonight, really. It’s been a couple of months without you. Perhaps Anjie could pass on dreaming of his Sacorrian comradette-princess tonight and allow me to dream of mine.

He’s probably dreaming of Brave Banthas, anyway…
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 13:45>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>
    
    I…didn’t expect to hear this. If there’s one thing I never really cared about, it’s what Drall are like in the bunk. What’s next, some primitive Outer Rim species bringing us the next sex symbol, a diva of sorts!? I may need to stop for now…


	8. Entry 08


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 15:47>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

 

Life is full of incredible little coincidences. Not that they’re incredible in a good way, but they are incredible, nevertheless. Ugh, I said incredible twice, this is most definitely not progressive. Sorry. Similarly enough, life is full of…incredible, incredible lies.

This morning, while taking a long walk with Anjie, I ran into somebody I never expected to see here – my old friend Zizi Pao! The whatever-the-species protégée of Yvar Trindello’s, resident foreign artist on the Cobble Stone Square!

Initially, I had no idea what he was doing here, but once he told me more, I started losing my faith in the Universe, as it is.  

For…Zizi was deported from our homeworld! I’m not exaggerating, Ranni.  The shuttle that left to Corellia at the same time I caught a ride on that freighter...he was on it. He was arrested during the time I spent at Mariklare Trindello's apartment, when she helped me hide some valuable things. And he implied that she was to be taken care of as well, because...I can't believe that I didn't know this...she was involved with him. My friend and the daughter of my patron! Hidden in plain sight!

Why didn't he tell me about this before? I told him about you and me!

Anyway…this is where his species, whatever it is again, is different from ours. And Selonians. And Humans. He’s so stoical, that Zizi! For somebody who claims he is heartbroken, he is handling things better than I do. No spice binge on his first day on Corellia. Or before. Or after. He said that he weeps when nobody else can see him. What would he think about my crying around Pavans, Geelmens, Antilleses and Mencuris?

As our conversation progressed, I realised that he’s taking everything, ever, with a grain of salt. To my surprise, he refuses to believe that Yvar Trindello is one of Them. He just shook it off, making that dismissive gesture with his upper right hand. Apparently, Yvar told him the same thing some weeks before our departure. Invited him to a dinner, got a bit tipsy himself and blurted that out, while no droids, Mariklare or Karlina were around.

Had I not been Mariklare’s preoccupation on that day both Zizi and I fled Sacorria, she would have had a chance to say goodbye to her lover. If he was her lover-lover. Not that he would even tell me that, pfft. Had he told me, however…I wouldn’t have reached out to Mariklare to save my life and leave Sacorria for good. I would have gone to somebody else. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her and it was because of me and me only.

After a couple of hours spent at the nearest tapcafe, Zizi gave me his commcode. And a pack of pink lipstick. I am not sure why, but he says that he no longer wants it in his possession. Being me, with colours and all, I realise that it's Mariklare's. Why wouldn’t he want to own it, if he loved her? Do I even want to ask? Moreover, do I even want to ask him why he thinks I should own it?

On a less confusing note, Zizi says that he found a teaching job at the art school in the Blue Sector. He can arrange me an interview there, since they are looking for another lecturer. This was a very awkward time to confess my lack of a degree to him, but he said that he is sure they will accept me, regardless.

Once home, Anjie, who kept quiet during my conversation with Zizi, kept on asking me about the lipstick. I told him that a Sacorrian girl used to own it and that she was Zizi's girlfriend. Luckily, he did not ask why she no longer is. Anjie then determined that he doesn't like this shade and that he doesn't think his Sacorrian comradette princess should be wearing lipstick at all. Or be blonde. Or dressed in expensive clothes. I hope he lowers his criteria by the time he grows up, because “a Sacorrian brunette or redhead in simple clothes who doesn’t wear lipstick” sounds a little too specific to me. I don't remember having a list of requirements like that when I met you, Ranni. I only wanted a girl. Any girl.

By Sarcophagus…I was so, so desperate back then!

In the end, Anjie ate some of the lipstick and used the rest to draw a huge heart with a question mark inside of it. Well, okay. He’s in love with a mystery, I get that. If that’s what makes him happy. Me, on the other hand, I wish other beings were more direct with me.

I need to contemplate on this. It’s Zizi we’re talking about, you know how much I love him and how happy I am to see him again…but the memories…the truth…it’s too much for me at the moment.

Mariklare and Zizi.

You and me.

Star-crossed lovers.

Let’s hope the rest of the day will make me feel better. The way Anjie is always making me smile…I have no reason to doubt it, right?

Right?
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 16:45>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>
    
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:10>>

I said I wanted to contemplate on my unexpected encounter with Zizi Pao. And I really did. But Borgiska invited me to come over at least. I tucked Anjie in and ended up in the apartment next door.

I shouldn’t have gone, Ranni. Not today.

Borgiska’s home reminds me of yours…you know, the one your clan never allowed me in, because I’m supposedly related to the other. Ugh...that one time I travelled from one city to the other solely to be denied even stepping my foot in your front yard. So, yes, Borgiska…she has a large library, an antique chrono and a miniature meditation cave.

She was intrigued by the fact that I once studied arts. This is where I told her that I had dropped out of university after eight unsuccessful, unprogressive years of trying to finish my end project. But, in an attempt not to make myself look bad, I told her about everyone I knew there, about all Sacorrian artist that I thought were known off-world. She dismissed half of them as regime's puppets and untalented hacks. The moment I mentioned the three Lylek siblings, she slammed her fist against the table and called them traitors of art. She went on to say that Davoreen Lylek was talented, but that his family only lives on his legacy and political power nowadays. She was even shaking her fists, Ranni, can you imagine that?

After she calmed down, Borgiska asked me if I knew "the controversial one"...the one "she always wanted to know more about". That one is her favourite Sacorrian artist, she said.

Know whom she meant? Me!

I then shared a pretty bizarre fake account of myself. I mean, the person you were with, not the walking-talking chaos of now. It's funny to speak of yourself in third person, make up the kind of a life you should have led, and claim all your pieces were abstract. I am...I am not sure how I managed to make so much up, in such a short amount of time. Borgiska was initially just staring at me. She was surprised.

After good five minutes of silence, she slowly climbed on top of her hoverstep and rised to the topmost shelf of her library. She brought back a lavish book titled 'Sacorrian Art Now', published by some art enthusiasts from Aurea and financed by the Mardri Soulworks Collective. The author, a man named Coovo Ferry, thanks our Censorship, Education and Scholarship Agency for holos of artists and their most famous pieces.

So, the book was financed by Aureans, but published on Vagran, hence being printed on recycled permaflimsi and labelled "good for the environment". It also bore a classic "decontaminated prior to departure" sticker. Those Grannos, ugh. It’s just a kriffin’ book!

I flicked through the pages and found my name. The shock could not have been any bigger. Instead of a picture of me, there was a badly-flattened holo of your sister's husband! How...how do these things even happen? He is younger than you and me, Ranni, and he is most certainly not an artist! Not to mention that I never wore glasses. Among my alleged pieces were some that have nothing to do with me. Things I never even heard of, let alone created. The style has nothing to do with me. It reminds me of Saride. It’s a Selonian kind of a thing. The colours are not vibrant, there is no depth, all of which implies typical Selonian art. I tried to hint it to Borgiska, but she says that Selonians have a better eye than everybody else, due to living underground.

I guess it was her turn to be shocked, so I told her how Selonian nudity I heard of on here scared me. I went on to describe what I thought was normal until a couple of weeks ago - the whole artificial insemination and ovary-growing business. She was baffled. The idea of Selonians not living underground and, as she said, specialising in more than one skill, made no sense to her. She told me about their hive mind and her biological interpretation of it had nothing to do with my spiritual. The Selonians she described sounded like the Doloria. That would mean all Selonians are terrorists. Impossible!

I turned a page in the book again. There it was. The replacement for my most cherished piece of work. And it looked nothing like the real thing. Flat. Brightly coloured. No texture, whatsoever. If I really made this, then I must have been on a major binge and I don't even remember it. But there is no way I did.

So, the one who wasn't me created something that wasn't mine. I am determined to find this Coovo Ferry. Maybe I should get that job and save up for a trip to Aurea, to confront him personally. Just...who does he think he is?

The couple of steps from Borgiska’s door to ours took me ages, or so I thought. I could not fit in the keycard properly. I woke up Anjie when I tripped over his toy quetarra in the bedroom and I had to sing him the Brave Banthas theme to put him to sleep again.

I could use a conversation with Gwyn now. But she won’t be back home until six in the morning. I am scared, Ranni. The world is not what I used to think it is.

You would hate me for this, but I really, really need some. And I’m not talking about the cuddles, Ranni. 
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:55>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	9. Chapter 09


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 03:2O>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

SO, I WENT AND HAD SOME, MISTRESS KEEPER-OF-THE-PERKY-TWINS! I TOTALLY DON’T MEAN YOUR SIS’ KIDLETS RIGHT NOW. EHEHEEHEHEHEHE!

It was good, good, good! It was not much, but I had some and I’m sitting here in the 'fresher, trying to remember what I would normally do in order to get it out of my system. I WANT TO GO HOME. I want to be with you, Ranni, even though it would almost certainly result in death. Sure, I would get to see you once again before they disposed of me? Right? Right? RIGHT? CAN YOU MAKE LOVE TO MY CORPSE, TOO? Please, pretty please, with a candied zherry on top? HAHAHAHA!

Do you remember that one time we got drunk on aged Seven Rivers whiskey? OKAY OKAY OKAY, you only had half of a glass and I had the rest of the bottle, but since I don't remember anything, then YOU MUST HAVE BEEN DEAD DRUNK, TOO!

I feel like I am here, but I am there...I have got to be everywhere! Invincibility has been revealed to me…by powers of whatever moon people on this UNPROGRESSIVE world worship most. ONE MOON OUT OF THREE THAT THEY CAN LOOK AT FOR AS KRIFFIN LONG AS THEY WOULD LIKE TO. I am looking at one of them RIGHT NOW. Wasting my time! Being UNPROGRESSIVE on PURPOSE! That's right, go UNPROGRESSIVENESS! I LOVE CORELLIA. I can do whatever the kriff I want! I can take the turbolift down, just like I take the turbolift up! Had I been studying here, I wouldn’t have had to spend all my life with an ugly bow-tie. Nobody would have cared if I was meant to contribute something to the so-called SOVEREIGNTY AND TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY. Nobody would have given a Force-damned-kriff about that, my pretty!

Gwynda will be back home from the night shift at any given moment! What am I going to tell her? Why does her refresher smell nasty and IT’S NOT LIKE THE LITTLE KORRAK HAD A POODOO? What? Just WHAT? Korraks are scary in Human form, so maybe he is not one, after all. But the Korrak guild has discovered me and they want to rainbow my highness all over....they are coming! They are coming! They are coming! And they’re coming for me, so I would better hide under this huge towel and crawl to the only free corner of this small space. THEY ARE COMING COMING COMING. 
    
    
    <<PRE-DEFINED STOPTRIGGER DETECTED: ALTERED STATE OF MIND :: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<NO RESPONSE. THE UNIT WILL BE TURNED OFF>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 03:43>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>
    
    
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 16:40>>

For somebody who had a deathstick and bought two more, I had more luck than I deserved today. And it’s thanks to the being I ranted about in yesterday’s log. I feel awful. Why do I always assume the worst and push people away?

Zizi got here at the break of dawn, thirty minutes before Gwynda was supposed to arrive. He brought me something pretty nasty to drink. He said that my comm woke him up in the middle of the night and I don't remember comming him at all. How come that he knew the right antidote? I don’t get it. I really don’t. He then cleaned up the refresher and disposed of the two remaining deathsticks. He said that he could not stand to see me like this. Before he left, he threw me under the sonic and ran cold water for good thirty seconds. I screamed like crazy.

Now, that was a wake-up call. Thank you, Zizi. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for putting up with me. It’s not your fault that Sacorrians are destroying your life and ruling it, but if I were you, I would be screaming and running for my life the next time somebody used the words such as “progress” around me. I would run away even if they said “prog” and it turned out they meant progesterone, prognosis or program.  You’re one great, great man.

Ugh, Ranni, sorry for talking to Zizi, who is obviously not here right now and doesn’t know about my diary yet. The perspectives kind of shifted and I blame it on my coming down from the deathstick. Whatever was the thing I had this morning, it no longer works and I feel like I’m hungry and full at the same time. Something is burning at the very bottom of my oesophagus, at the very top of my stomach. Pretty sure there is a lot of sugar in those deathsticks. Next time I want to get away from my misery, I will make sure I ask the slythmongers about something more Drall-pancreas-friendly. The whole world was made for Humans and their ability to consume sickening amounts of simple sugars. Either that or Zelosians invented deathsticks and combined whatever the active ingredient in them may be with their own poison of choice.

I’m rambling, Ranni. I’m sorry. I still need to tell you what happened today. So, anyway…Zizi…he said that he was going to come back at ten hundred and that I would better be ready for my interview. Seeing four index fingers in that “don’t do anything stupid, be good” gesture, at the same time…looked incredibly threatening to me, even though I knew that Zizi was never, is not and will never be “out to get me”. Not to mention that it never slipped my mind that the interview would be today. He must have told me that before and…I don't know!

Still on the edge of spewing my insides, I heard Gwynda arrive home. I remained alert, just pretending to sleep, until I was sure that she had tucked herself next to her little boy. Neither of them figured out what was going on, thankfully.

At ten thirty, Zizi and I were at the Basic School #33, where he was hired as the lower grades’ art teacher. I tried to turn around and leave before the door slid, but he grabbed me with both pairs of arms. He knew I was a quitter. He remembered that from the exhibition at the ProSper factory. He also knew I would employ some pretty bizarre tactic in order to look smarter. Therefore, he didn’t laugh at the spectacles I put on. I was inspired by the not-me in Borgiska’s book, so if spectacles make somebody look smarter, so be it. I also got an unusually large waistbag, which eventually ends up on my back and jumps up and down when I walk. I think I look like a teacher now.

We took a turbolift to the school’s third floor. I was concerned that it’s not progressive to have a turbolift in school, as the younglings need all the exercise they can get; but Zizi assured me that it was for staff only and that the younglings use the stairs. He cut my repulsortrain of thought before I even managed to ponder the idea of using the stairs to go up; and said that I am to meet the school’s ruling committee. I swallowed a lump and sat on my chair. Two Humans, a fellow Drall and a droid were examining me, or so it felt like. I have never had a job interview of this kind before, Ranni, and you know it. _I felt like a Zeltron in a Jedi Temple!_

They asked me what my previous position was. I swallowed a lump again, grinned and looked to Zizi, who made a barely recognizable gesture with his bottom right hand. Trying my best not to stutter, I said that I was a lecturer’s aide on post-graduate studies.

Three or the four council members thought I was a good fit for the position. The fourth, the droid, disagreed and went on to provide a full list on why a Sacorrian refugee would not make a good lecturer. However, the other three just shrugged it off. They want me to teach these children, they are all about employing non-Humans this year and Zizi later told me that it’s because of the “unexplainable growing tendencies against all non-Humans in the Core Worlds”. I am not sure if I understand where such tendencies would come from. If I understand this well, the Separatist leader is a cross of a frog and a Duros and he sure isn’t pretty! I don’t see teenage girls swooning over him or something.

The other one, the one people say is a Sith Lord – whatever that means – Gwynda said he was handsome. Ugh, no way, he looks like Yvar Trindello’s father in law! Then again, Human women had a thing for that man too, before his dementia.

Wait, what? How does this relate to anything?

I am making no sense today. I am not even sure what I’m talking about, Ranni. Perhaps it’s the time I stopped reaching for the bottle or whatever-spice-container when I can’t take the world around me. I just want to sleep. Sometimes I feel like I haven't had a single night of sleep after I left home. It was only with you that I could feel safe. Two of my favourite things at night were my big girl and my tiny bed. You would squish me and I barely had space to move in the corner, but that faded in comparison with the sole fact that you were present.

And not even that could end my spice binges for good. Even if your love was unconditional, which you so often claimed it was, it was not enough to save me.

I'm a wermo, Ranni. I don’t deserve friends like Gwynda and Zizi. I don’t deserve keen listeners like Anjie. And I don’t deserve this luck, just like I did not deserve you. I guess my luck will start running out, as the time goes by.

I don’t even dare rewind to what I logged last night. The only reason I am not disposing of is this dying light of hope that I might change. Maybe my experiences will change me. Maybe I am not the “romdram guy” as your sister used to say whenever she would attempt to convince you to give up on me…Sarcophagus knows she annoys me!
    
    
    <<***** HAS BEEN IDLE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES:: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<THE UNIT WILL NOT BE TURNED OFF>>

I’m sorry that I’m speaking badly of your sister, Ranni. Please, don’t be angry with me. I am so lonely here and after my recent realisations, the reality so different from ours having slapped me on my face and teaching me that my entire life was a lie, I would rather go back and live in that illusion than get even more disappointed…

…but you know, and I know that it’s too late.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you – I did get the job. But I am not starting until the next school year. I will have to spend some more months doing nothing.

Kriff that.
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 17:20>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	10. Entry 10


    <<<129 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE LAST LOGIN. REAUTHENTICATION REQUIRED. ENTER NAMECODE!!!>>>
    <<<NAMECODE: *****>>>
    <<<NAMECODE CORRECT. WELCOME, *****>>>
    
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 23:25>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

Been a long time, Ranni. The winter was at its very end the last time I recorded something for you. And now, the summer is over and come tomorrow, I’ll be taking Anjie to school. Of course, it’s just Youngling Hall, they won’t be getting actual grades yet, only stickers of flowers and cute animals, but it’s going to change his life, forever. And Gwynda’s. And mine! Just when I got used to spending the time with him all day, every day, he’ll be gone for good six hours out of twenty-five.

And I’m afraid of being alone. I spent the whole summer hanging around with Zizi, as well as my adopted family. We made a couple of trips to the countryside, too. Gwynda wanted to take Anjie to the Hapes Cluster to meet her side of the family, but she was not granted the privilege. Apparently, once left, one cannot go back there. That’s some _clusterkriff_ , alright! Almost like my situation. Oh, wait – _they probably wouldn’t kill her._

I sort of adopted her approach to things, or at least I thought that’s what her approach was: I tried to live like my previous life never existed, but I knew I would eventually pick up this holorecorder again and start spewing out these letters never intended to be sent. Somebody told me that Jedi are the ones to look up to and that they never say things such as _never_ , but I was not trained to accept exile, possible death and being away for my loved ones forever, nor am I dedicated to peace in the Galaxy.

Therefore, since I cannot follow the self-sacrificing path of those holy monks, I attempted to convince myself that I really am the person I created, as opposed to the person I left behind, the person I grew up as. And initially, it went so well that I managed to spend the entire summer not thinking about anything other than what was going on at the moment.

One thing that may have helped me get into such an uncommon frame of mind was that I was hired as lecturer, as a part of Coronet University’s summer programme. I didn’t quite expect this after I was told that I would have to wait until the next school year starts to more or less teach 4-7 year olds how to use basic painting and drawing tools without swallowing them; but two days after I got the job, the droid who was against me at my interview, came to our home and said that he thinks I am just what they needed. Luckily, that gave me plenty of time to seek Jax Pavan again and have a degree forged.

And three months later, I was there, in an enclosure right in the middle of the Axial Park, with Anjie dipping his hands in paint buckets and finger-painting behind my back, and a bunch of young people who seemed to be fascinated by me. I told them that my name is Lidgrain and that they can call me Lil, but this Duros girl, with the amount of excitement I never expected from somebody wearing a permanent frown, raised her hand and asked me if the “grain” in Lidgrain has anything to do with dust corn. A Twi’lek man – by the way, those look _nasty_ compared to their graceful women – interrupted her and asked if we all get named over agriculture-related terms. Another creature…being, whose species I cannot quite recall, but he was green, somewhat feline and tribal, asked me about common names in my world. I enthusiastically told her about all Progressias and Unitoos that I knew, about everybody naming their children after Roofus, Dorthus Tal and Taranya and this custom transcending our planet’s three species and I even remembered that story about the couple from Curheg who were allowed to name their son Saygo, because they conceived him during the lunch break at the ProSper factory.

What I got for this was a couple of students nudging one another and a question about how in the universe were people allowed to make love on the factory grounds. A Human woman who said she was from Aurea thought that no explanation was needed because “everybody can do it, wherever they please”, but the Twi’lek from earlier told her to shut up. I didn’t like that!

As expected, they all dismissed my story as a spacer tale and laughed. A lot. Then they laughed even more after a local girl - who looked a lot like one of those people at my job interview and was probably related to one of them - pointed out what Anjie was doing. The Twi’lek led the choir of mockery, once again. I didn’t know what to do! My authority was crumbling like the steady rocks of the Triad Mountain under the hard-working hands of Dorthus Tal prisoners, as directed by one Davoreen Lylek! And then, the green-whatever male and the Aurean woman joined Anjie and started dipping their hands in paint buckets. The latter winked at me behind everybody’s backs.

“That’s right, you guessed it!” I said, clapping my hands. “Our first exercise is about unconventional approaches to art. Free your mind! Free your mind and the rest will follow.”

The other students were taking turns at finger-painting on the available canvases, four of them working on each one. Anjie, the Aurean girl and the green being stuck to the first and what they came up with was my favourite painting – it looked like a house built on top of a tree, with a suspended bridge-like structure leading to nowhere. Anjie painted two yellow celestial bodies and one large pinkish-white one in the sky above this strange construction. I really liked it! Needless to say that the Twi’lek male drew a crude nude of one of his female colleagues.

After the class, the green tribal student approached me and told me that she wanted to talk to me. And here was I, thinking she was a he. I tried to preserve the very last droplet of my authority and I asked her what she wanted to know, in the manner that would’ve definitely resulted in a hearing back at home. She just shrugged and started talking. Her first sentences surprised me – she said: “I feel almost as lost as you. Maybe even more!”

I didn’t know what to say, but I was pretty sure that she was not mocking me, unlike the other students. They were probably making jokes about progress and unity on their way to their homes or dormitories. And she, she asked if she could have a lunch with me. So, I picked up my equipment and followed her and Anjie to the nearest slider joint. She said her name was Korgah and she ordered a slider with more meat than bread. While we waited for our meal, she was playing with her strange bracelet that seemed to be made of tiny animal skulls.

And Anjie was playing with her tail.

That’s one thing I did not mention – that she had a tail. She didn’t seem to be annoyed with what he was doing, she wasn’t even mentioning it, it’s like her tail had a mind of its own. The story she told me made me wonder if I was truly as unlucky as I thought I was. I knew my parents. I know where I was born. I know that I’m a Drall. And she, she doesn’t know any of this. Her background and even her species remain sketchy at best. She can’t remember her earliest years, her most distant memory is a bunch of lines in a black sky, which would imply that she could have, I don’t know, been born on a spaceship. Then there was a planet that sounds like Coruscant, from the little I know…or maybe Empress Teta. She was a street youngling and was eventually picked up by an orphanage and placed in a foster family. They named her after the only word she could say at the time of her arrival to the orphanage.

Ever since then, her adoptive parents have been trying to find out just what she is and where she came from. There was a theory that she was intended to be a slave, but she does not remember being forced to do anything and there were no instances of stunning, being kept on a leash or any kind of abuse. The closest thing she has to her past, the theory that makes most sense to her is that she got into a spaceship that somehow found its way to…well, wherever. She’s seen many xenosociologists and xenobiologists, but they had no idea about her species. One of the reasons she chose to study on Corellia was the fact that there are so many spacers here and somebody, somehow, might recognise her. This is why she’s waiting tables at the Fel Swoop and living across the lane, in an apartment building where every other person is a scoundrel, slythmonger or a gang member. And no, her parents have no idea of this – they’ve relocated to Nubia some years ago, to work for Nubian Design Collective, and they’re sending her credits that would afford her a lush life. But she chooses to give most of those credits to find out more about her past.

As expected, I told Korgah the same story I told Borgiska months ago. She patted me on the shoulder and told me never to forget where I came from – because I have the privilege of knowing it. She left me her comm code, too. Said that it would be great to hang out sometime. I’m not sure if she’s into older men. Then again, is she older? Most of these students are in their early twenties, but they have set birth dates. I don’t know. Now that the summer is over, I am not obliged to see her again, right?

I will tell you about the other classes some other time. We had two per week and my time is limited. Not that it makes a difference…

…so, yes, I may have pretended that you and I never existed for a period of time, but I’m still longing for you and recalling my initial feelings for you, the ones I didn’t know were a cocktail of confusion and lust, and thought were a steady pattern of fear and uttermost respect. Do all passionate secret relationships start that way, with the man referring to himself as “your progressive servant” and the woman thinking what the Corell is wrong with him?

I can’t believe I said Corell and not Sacor! Am I starting to blend in? Immerse? Disappear? Call it what you want, but this concept is new to me!
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 24:58>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	11. Chapter 11


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 21:17>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

I may or may not have typed this one to read it out loud, like a scene from a holodrama. _Is that cheating, Ranni?_

Today was Anjie’s first day of school.

Mine, too!

It was slightly bittersweet, Ranni. The child I should have been taking to school should have been a little dralling in a yellow collar, bearing your clan name and symbol on a brooch. You should have been standing next to me, holding his or her other hand, like every proud mother would. Instead of it, we’re light years away from each other, the only children you will ever take to school are your sister’s twins…

…whom am I kidding? You might as well be married. It’s been nine months since I fled Sacorria. Somebody else’s drallings will be wearing those yellow collars, waiting to be evaluated and hopefully be red, just like you. And him, whoever he may be. This makes me sad. But you probably went on with your life, didn’t you?

Oh, speaking of colours - I should not have been surprised that children on Corellia are not obliged to wear anything specific in terms of school uniforms, but I was. I just can’t stop wondering about all these things we were groomed into believing were abnormal. Anjie picked his clothes by himself. And yes, there is a Brave Banthas logo on his trousers. I thought that was stupid, but Gwynda sung a couple of lines of the theme song and kissed Anjie on the forehead.

That said, Ranni…Gwynda has been unusually cheerful recently. I guess she’s got used to her job at last…or something? She is not complaining about Blobbo the Hutt at all. She sings while preparing caf, she sings while giving orders to the housekeeping droid. Yes, such a thing exists, they’re a special kind of mouse droids. She is not talking about Aldo like she used to, she seems to be pretty neutral about him. I hope she’s not using spice. But she sure looks pretty when she’s happy…for a Human, anyway.

She was all dolled up when she followed me and Anjie to school this morning. He had a hard time saying goodbye to her at the playground and then separating with me, when I took the turbolift to the third floor and he proceeded to his classroom on the ground floor. This was his first lesson at independence. Ironically, the people he had to let go, even if it was just for a couple of hours per day, were those not fully independent themselves.

My first day as a teacher went much better than the experience with the university students. Younglings don’t ask strange questions, they can’t wait to draw and paint. They see art in a non-pretentious way that adults are not capable of, most of the time. We care about how what we create is going to be perceived. They just spend time perceiving what they will later create. That’s the approach most of them will abandon once they become preoccupied with leaving their mark on the world.

After four successful classes and a wonderful conversation with the other teachers, I took the stairs from the third floor to Anjie’s classroom. I can see some students were confused by it, but at least nobody connected my behaviour with any particular planet. That’s another thing I like about younglings of basic school age – the word Sacorria wouldn’t mean a thing to them! They didn’t ask anything about me, they were just waiting until I filled today’s lesson into the teacher’s journal, so they could draw the most memorable moment of their past vacation. That was a good day, or so it seemed.

Anjie was not in his classroom when I went to pick him up. I went to the playground and found him crying in the corner of the limmie field, with all of his belongings scattered around him. A couple of other younglings were standing nearby, not reacting, as an older boy with unkempt hair picked an item from the ground and stepped on it.

I ran to Anjie and hugged him. At first, the younglings warned me that the bully was dangerous, I guess they didn’t realise that I was a teacher. Once they did, they were suddenly brave and taunting the intruder.

“Just stop! It’s not pr…it’s not okay!” I almost yelled. “What happened?”

“He broke my toy quetarra!” Anjie pointed to the scruffy-looking youngling and I turned around to look at him. He must have been some 4-5 years older and he was definitely not going to Basic School #33. His mannerisms were different. _He must have been from the Blue Sector!_

“That is because you didn’t have any money, kid.” The older boy casually kicked the largest shard of the former plastoid instrument. “Or, food, for that matter!”

That was the kind of logic I never understood and could never subscribe to. Why beat somebody up because they had no money? What would have been the most progressive thing to do?

As our old proverb back at home says, we should give them bread when they throw stones at us. And that is precisely what I did. I shook hand with the scruffy little bully and invited him to have a lunch with Anjie and me. Anjie was not too happy about this, but then I reminded him of everything I taught him about beings working on huge dust corn farms sharing their lunches with the wild animals of the steppe at the beginning of each harvest season. He nodded and reluctantly shook hands with the bully. Then we proceeded to the slider joint, the same one we used to eat after the summer classes.

I commed Korgah on our way there and she joined us. She was delighted to hear from me, as if I had not seen her on the last summer class less than a week ago. Looks like inviting her to sit down with us was a good idea – she knew this bully. He’s roaming the streets of the Blue Sector and telling every person a different story about his whereabouts and origin and he seems to be working for a larger network of thieves.

I looked at this poor soul. He was eating as if he never had any food. Sure, little Human boys are hungry. Anjie may be slightly thin, but he has a decent appetite and he knows where to stop. This boy doesn’t know when to stop and he’s taken some topato fries from my tray, too. It was only after four sliders and three large packs of fries that he looked up and graced us with something that vaguely resembled a smile.

“What’s your name?” I asked him. He just shook his head and took a large sip of cola. What came out of his full mouth sounded like “Unf Mhhm”.

Anjie giggled and burst into a spontaneous rendition of “Unf, unf, unf, unf, unf, unf”, clapping his hands.

“Stop annoying me!” The boy threatened him, to which Anjie just shrugged and offered him half of his zherry pie. Another not-really-a-smile flashed on Unf-boy’s face, for about a second or two.

Then he burped.

Korgah told him that she could hand him over to the authorities at any given time and he stuck his tongue out at her. She then tried to take a different approach and told him pretty the same thing she told me – that his privilege is the ability to know where he came from and that we could help him find himself a warm home. He just shrugged it off, with the kind of cynicism I have never seen in a prepubescent child. He said that he does not care where he comes from, as long as he can eventually grow old enough to earn credits helping out at the spaceport and not through a network of muggers and beggars.

I hugged the boy again. Unlike the first time at the playground, he pushed me away. He said that he was always alone and that he will always be alone. Then he asked if he could go to the refresher.

Predictably, he didn’t come back. Korgah shook her head. She has seen it happen at least three times. The first time around, the boy was in tears and he was begging her not to take him to an orphanage; every next time he would be tougher. The only thing he was consistent about was his wish to make it to the shipyards of Saberhing someday. This is the toughest she has ever seen him. She added that those like him end up on the bottom of a fountain or under an archway. For some reason, I disagreed. Maybe it was, once again, my inability to grasp life outside of Sacorria, or maybe I just have a feeling that this little bully could make it in the world. I can never tell if I have some sort of intuition or if I’m just too idealistic sometimes.

On our way home, as the repulsortrain swished through a former Selonian tunnel, Anjie started crying about his toy quetarra again, clutching a single piece of it in his little hands.

“Know what, Anjie?” I tried to wink, but failed miserably. “My earnings from the summer classes are in and you have shown me you really understand all I have taught you since the day we met. I am going to buy you a new quetarra!”

His face lit up. “A _real_ quetarra?”

I did not…I did not see that coming. But I could not possibly disappoint him. We went to Coronet City Conservatory of Music, looked around their handmade instruments store and came back home with a green quetarra. Now, if Anjie’s going to learn the Brave Banthas theme, I should probably jump out of the window.

Or go back to the Gus Treta station and jump off it into the cold vacuum of space.

So, that was my attempt to write a story for you. Except that it’s real. You can rule it out as a result of too much caf.

<<LOCAL TIME: 22:48>>  
<<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	12. Entry 12


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 02:24>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

Ranni, I’m concerned! Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion. Maybe all of that. Maybe nothing. Something else. I might as well just be stupid! I was stupid so many times before, and you know it…

Gwynda has a boyfriend. His name is Lor Becq and he’s big on discipline. That’s what he said. That is how he introduced himself to me when he came to visit us today. He’s into Teras Kasi and some wacky non-violent take on lightsaber choreography that he calls “Jedi Training”. He’s released half a dozen of holovids which are mostly him and another Human Jedi fanatic fighting the air with imaginary lightsabers. They have their own dojo, sort of – it’s an abandoned dance hall in the Blue Sector, which is apparently one level upwards from Blobbo the Hutt’s cantina and the nightclub.

That’s right, Lor met Gwynda at work. She brought him a drink and that’s how it started. He confided in her, told her about his failed marriage and two children and she used the opportunity to tell him pretty much everything about herself. See where I’m going with this? Get the holo? Misery loves company and this man can only make Gwyn more miserable. They are bonding over their past mistakes, over their joint hate of former spouses. I am not sure if I approve of this. It’s not like I had a relationship with anybody other than you – we are talking only about relationships I entered willingly here – but had there been somebody in my life before you, another muse, another lifeline, I would’ve most certainly not referred to her as scum, a lunatic or a phantom limb. That last one is really creative and it would have made me laugh hadn’t it been the word Lor used to describe his former wife. Is he grooming Gwyn into remarrying?

The first time Lor visited us, he joined Gwynda and they came to pick Anjie and me from school. His speeder hovered close to the playground and Gwyn waved to us. He appeared to have asked her something – perhaps a question about my being Drall – but by the time Anjie and I approached the vehicle, he was sporting a mouthful of blindingly white teeth, grinning at the two of us. He patted the boy on the head and then remarked that his angleberry-blonde hair was probably going to darken by the time he hit puberty. He basically used the son to compliment the mother and bash the father and I thought it was in poor taste. The poor child just grinned and added that he is going to be like daddy. He is no longer referring to Aldo as daddy scum.

For some reason, that whole discourse reminded me of the system back home. And I don't like that. I don't like that at all. Another thing I don't like is how dismissive Lor was of Anjie's quetarra playing. I am proud that the boy managed so much without a tutor and Lor claimed that he's not fast enough and that he needs to improve. He sees playing a musical instrument as a mean of becoming more disciplined and I see it as a form of art. He just does not understand what it means to live under constant, relentless oppression.

It was only after this encounter that Gwynda confided in me and told me about her and Lor. And it took her about four more days to tell that to Anjie. Needless to say that the little one was terrified. His first reaction was flattering as much as it was frightening – he asked me if I could be his new daddy instead.

The next thing I knew, Lor was everywhere. As if he…as if he feared that Gwyn would cheat on him. With me! A tiny furry youngling-minder. I thought about the irony of this all: I don’t understand why Gwyn is pretty, yet somebody is stalking me around Coronet, assuming I’m fatally attracted to her. How does Lor’s mind even work? Gwyn and I don’t sleep in the same room – mine is windowless, with only a vent on the ceiling, cave-like and very small. She’s in the large, luminous master bedroom, with Anjie…

…I mean, she was. Anjie has been sleeping on the sofa in the den about every second night now. There were a couple of times he had nightmares, and each of those times I took him to my room and left the door open, so he would not be scared of such a dark place with no moonlight. I told him stories about Brave Banthas meeting his imaginary future girlfriend. Not sure how I even thought of something like that, but he loved it. He would often add his own characters to these stories and fall asleep babbling about the worlds that don’t exist and things that never happened. One of those stories scared me, though - a man with a mask was chasing him “through a maze of colours” and he “couldn’t fight back, because he had no proper arms”. That was frightening!

Sometimes I truly wonder if our viewscreen content back on Sacorria was better for younglings. You know, the reruns of Karlina Yaihe shows…before she was mistress Trindello and had all those things done to her face and body.

I talked to Borgiska about this – she told me that I should pack up and come live with her. She’s lonely. She does not want to die and not be found for days, weeks, months.

I talked to Zizi about this, too. He suggested that we all go to a dinner together, so he could take a good look at Lor. I told him that I would not do this in a million years and he…he just went and booked us an eight-being table at NovaNova, out of all places! I don’t even want to think of how much this cost and how he paid for it.

Korgah was stoked when I commed her to join us. She was slightly less enthusiastic when I told her that she was Zizi’s date, and not mine. Me, I went with Borgiska. She claimed that she had not left her apartment for about two years and suddenly, her fear of dying alone, made so much more sense.

Lor snickered the moment he saw me, and asked me if I could have found myself a date that was not twice my age. Borgiska kept her head high, but I could hear poor Korgah sigh.

The waiter, some kind of a near-Human, liked us a lot. She brought us six servings of cosmic rose shooters and said that it was on the house. By Sarcophagus, that thing was sweet! Borgiska refused to drink it, fearing that it would be too much for her old age. We got Anjie a non-alcoholic variant of the same drink, but, to my surprise, he ended up licking the remains of the original from his mother’s glass in the end. Should I be worried about this?

Borgiska eventually fell asleep, which prompted Lor to make even more jokes about my choice in dates. In the end, when I was completely sure that there was no line for him to cross left, he asked how it feels like to kiss somebody with no teeth and if all of her was saggy. Zizi subtly grabbed my hand, in that “don’t do anything stupid” manner. But that Lor, how could he say something like that about a wise old woman? I…sure as Cor…Sac…whatever hope that Borgiska didn’t hear him! What a strange, rude being he is!

If nothing else, he didn’t come home with us tonight. But this was not the end of my troubles. As Gwyn and I were having some ryoo tea, she said that Lor complained about me. I am not nice when he spots me at random places across the city. I was not nice tonight either, he said. He does not want to give me chances because I deserve none, he said. I’m just a loud-mouthed dissident from “wherever”. I’m apparently rude, too; because I don’t smile at his jokes.

Can you even imagine this Ranni? You probably can, this was happening back at home and you know where it took us? Right, to our separation.

And then, there is Korgah. She’s in love with me and I can see that. I don’t know what she is, but she gets upset even about Borgiska. Borgiska, out of all beings.

I don’t want to do this to her.

This business of unrequited love is getting to me, Ranni. I could not be with you in the limelight, for reasons that you thought were “right”. And now that somebody wants to be with me and I can see that from the edge of the Outer Rim…should I be pretending not to see it?

Ranni, I if you were here, I would not have a problem saying this to your face: I don’t want her. The only one I have ever wanted is you. But she has never seen anybody who looked like her. She does not know what she is. She does not know where she is from. Her whole life is about hanging by an invisible thread, why should I keep her hanging on, too? If I give her a try, am I doing anything more than wish fulfilment and shedding the last bit of rebellion against Sacorria that I have in me?

I’m going to regret this, most likely. Both the thing with Korgah and the thing with the…is there a nice word for him at this point?

I must be very angry. I can see it by how fast I’m talking.
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 02:40>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	13. Entry 13


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 11:40>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

Waking up in Korgah’s bed in the Blue Sector was the strangest experience I have had on Corellia so far. There was a holo of her and her adoptive parents on the wall and I could see Treasure Ship Row through the window.

And then, she came back to bed with a hovertray, wearing nothing but a skimpy petticoat. To be honest, as ugly as it may be to admit this, I noticed only the hovertray at first. This species of Korgah’s is sort of…androgynous. If this is how their females look like, their males can’t be much different. How do they know which is which?

The hovertray almost brought me to tears. While I was thinking about not liking her body, not feeling anything after our night together and wondering what a male like her would look like, Korgah was in the kitchen, putting the elusive Sacorrian grey bear sausage on a piece of genuine, day-fresh bread from DustCornFarms Inc. She apologised for the bantha butter actually not being Sacorrian, because she couldn’t have made it through her connection in NovaNova, who would’ve been likely to have some. And then, she looked at me, her eyes full of love, while I ate all this. Nobody has ever served me a breakfast, apart from you, Ranni. Not even my own family. I’m not counting cantina lunches during that tedious and exhausting process of fitting into the Sacorrian machine…I mean, schooling.

Once I was done, Korgah had her centuries-old housekeeping droid that had no single shiny spot on his body left direct the tray back to her kitchenette. She dropped the petticoat and snuggled up against me again. Then she asked me _how it was_.

I…I didn’t know what to say.

One thing I did not want to admit to myself at first is that I had not been missing the sensation. Not at all. All these days, I dreamed about spice and alcohol, much more than intercourse…because, being in bed with somebody other than you was an abstract thought that didn’t even occur to me. But Korgah, she loved every single second of it. She was…I can’t believe I’m telling you this, Ranni…she was kissing me as if her entire life depended on it. I was horrible, I just wanted it to be over. There was something awfully non-sentient about the way she behaved, something more similar to an animal mating than a sentient making love to another sentient. Awful, absolutely awful.

I told her that I liked it. And then she compared me with six other men she slept with. Three of them were Human, one was Selonian, one Bimm and one Bothan. She believes that the last one must have been a security agent of some sorts. I don’t know that species, but she claims they look very suspicious. And they all liked her feistiness, she said.

Then she asked me to spit it out and confess how many lovers I had. Took me a while to answer. And then, I felt like a typical male for the first time in many years. I could not have possibly revealed my number of partners to her and I’m not even sure why. I said that I was quite popular with women and that I never bothered to remember their names. She asked me about interspecies relationships on Sacorria being frowned upon and I responded that all my one-night-stands and girlfriends were Drall. _Now, that one wasn’t a lie, right, Ranni?_

Korgah was impressed and, deep inside, what I wanted was for her to hate me and think I’m nothing but a nerf herder. She said that she would jealously keep me away from those who want me and that, the first time she saw me, she knew I was the one. I asked her how does she know and her tiny bird skull bracelet kept on jiggling, as she cackled on and on. She claims this is written in the stars, though she has no idea where her own reasoning came from.

I keep on wondering what this is for. She cannot start a family with me. I’m twice her age. But she adores me and says that, once she’s done with her studies for this semestre, she will take me to Nubia, to meet her family. And then, the next school year, we can rent an apartment in the Orange Sector, so I could visit Borgiska and the Mencuris as often as I want to. She thinks Lor owns a better one and that, who knows, I may be able to keep the one we currently live in, should he choose to take Gwyn and Anjie in.

Planning ahead. A 20-year-old girl is planning ahead. I’m a 40-year-old man and I never planned a thing in my entire life.

I walked back home. Took me about an hour, which seemed too long and not long enough. The blue sector just transitioned into the orange somehow, as I was walking. Run down old buildings gave way to the new, planned housing. And I realised that I don’t feel like I belong in either of these two places. The blue looks more like home, the Orange feels more like home. And the downtown skyline is so strange. But that has nothing to do with anything other than my personal defeats, my inability to adopt to the Corellian kind of common, Corellian kind of…normal.

Anjie was waiting for me in front of the building, with a new friend he made. They wanted to show me this tree in the nearby park, they were absolutely sure that it was “haunted”. These days, he’s playing outside a lot and I’m glad that he’s making friends. I wouldn’t want him to be like I was at his age, he’s a fragile youngling and he needs love.

The tree, it was just like any other tree. Apparently, an apex, and those tend to grow in all directions at once. I could only smile broadly at Anjie and his friend’s imagination. This is why I always loved younglings. They both hugged me and then asked for angleberry ice cream. I had them buy three from the Muun seller hovering on what seemed to have been a modified swoop bike.

And that taste, Ranni...it brings back so many memories. I’m pretty sure I had these berries at some point in my life, even though the Book of Law’s article on forbidden foodstuffs had them listed and claimed that they had never found their way to Sacorria. They’re sweet and intoxicating, but not in the way spice and alcohol would be, rather in an innocent, younglingish way.

We ended up playing limmie in the street for a while, with four other younglings. An older boy from the neighbourhood, a sturdy Selonian, said that I’m a pretty good forward. Me? I felt like there was a small victory to this day, after all. I never scored a goal as a child, nobody ever wanted to assist me, they all wanted to be heroes themselves, or whatever. This was exciting, Ranni. Far more exciting than giving Korgah a try and I guess I should be ashamed to admit that, but I’m not. I’d rather be a part of younglings’ limmie squad, than a lover-man.

At some point, Gwyn leaned on the bedroom window and I could swear that she wore a petticoat very similar to Korgah’s. Did they go shopping together or something? And is Lor into those things? Because I’m most certainly not. I don’t even know how to ask any of them if they just had a thought about buying expensive lingerie together! Remember that one time I asked you about…wait, what was it called?

The trouble with days like this is that I’m not sure if I’m redeemable or not. I don’t know if I’m a success or a failure. I hate hanging out in the middle, in the mist of uncertainty, under the cloak of things that are not easily-defined.

I hope I get some answers and I hope I get them soon.
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 12:27>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

You have a really, really odd concept of romantic love going on...Lil. You love to suffer, don't you? I make bizarre decisions every day and every night...yes, even in my sleep, but this just...this just makes no sense. If your heart is broken, why would you go out of your way to break somebody else's heart? Moreover, can't you draw the line at going to bed with somebody whose species you're certain about? She could have actually been violent, feeding on you like those, whatever they're called...

Yes, everything is fine! I am just not sleepy, yet. I will keep it quiet.

Kriffin' corridor ghoul, that blonde...


	14. Entry 14


    <<<26 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE LAST LOGIN. REAUTHENTICATION REQUIRED. ENTER NAMECODE!!!>>>
    <<<NAMECODE: *****>>>
    <<<NAMECODE CORRECT. WELCOME, *****>>>
    
    <<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 24:26>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

This time next week, I will have been here for a year, Ranni. And for some reason, I have a bad feeling about this. A bad feeling that keeps me awake and away from the place I call home, away from the two people whom I have been sharing my troubles with.

I’m sitting at the teachers’ lounge at work in the middle of the night, wondering why on Sacorria, Corellia or whatever other planet did I ask for answers. _Did I really want any_? The amount of answers I got is frightening, hard to swallow at once and the worst thing about it…err…it opens the blast door to more questions and requires searching for even more answers. I hate this, Ranni!

Gwyn changed jobs. She is now the chief of staff at NovaNova, out of all places. And by what she told me, this happened between our lunch there and my night at Korgah’s. The explanation she served to me first – pun perfectly intended, thank you very much – was that the waiter who liked us a lot talked to her about it and that she had an interview. Sure I would have known about this interview? She still tells me everything whenever Lor is not sleeping at our home. This is just too important to miss. I am pretty sure that she lied to me and that no interview took place.

For the first two weeks or so, I was trying to convince myself that everything was like normal. I wake up in the morning. I take Anjie to school. I teach my classes and feel progressive about it. I join Zizi for lunch at the school caf’terie. I attend whatever teacher meetings there are and an occasional parent may or may not drop by to ask me about their youngling’s grades. They mostly don’t, nobody seems to be caring about art these days. I pick Anjie up and we either head home or meet up with Korgah at the slider joint. Sometimes, Lor picks Anjie up, which I hate because I don’t know what he’s like with the youngling, and because Korgah then takes me home and I have to pretend I’m delighted to make love to her. She always surprises me with something genuinely Sacorrian. She is even starting all her messages and comm calls with “prog” now. I am not sure if she’s trying to impress me, if it’s visible that I’m not really there when I’m next to her, or that she has the kind of an identity that can further be bent, shaped, precast into whatever she wants to be.

Wait, I was talking about the routine? I may sleep at Korgah’s for the night if I’m sure that Anjie will be fine without me, but most of the times, I go back home because more than one lovemaking session with Korgah within 25 hours is a torture and her idealistic views of me are just not the way I see myself and not the way I see my idealism.

But the routines don’t sit well with me. I started avoiding Korgah, with an excuse that I’m playing dejarik with Borgiska. I shall not go in the details of dejarik being so much different from what we’re used to and that I had to learn it all over again, but in reality, I spent most of the time with Anjie, listening to him play Kriff Blasters on quetarra. I am confused by that wailer-group, but Anjie adores them. They have this song _titled Force Save the Chancellor_ and it’s sort of funny, but abrasive at the same time. The album is called Ignore the Spuds. And, what impresses me most is that my little boy can play the whole thing, straight to finish! All eleven songs on the original edition…plus the twelfth song from the Core Worlds special edition! Just how intuitive is he? Brilliant! I thought he had a talent for painting, but that may have been a bias on my behalf, he’s born to be a wailer!

Sure, that sounded okay? But I messed it up. Again!

You would probably hate me, Ranni.

So, yes, yesterday morning…I had another slip and from that point on, I started fearing everybody. This time, I just stopped a slythmonger on my way home from Korgah’s, desperate about not having any answers and this time, I picked something called rokna blue. It just reminded me of the word Korgah was repeating in her sleep. I was instructed not to take too much of it and I am pretty sure that I didn’t…

…but nevertheless, whatever effect is this supposed to have on other species, it creates nothing but pure depression in us Drall. I ended up calling in sick and waking up when it was already dark. I got out of my windowless room, sat down next to Gwynda and Anjie, who both wondered if I had caught some sort of a virus from my students and just stared at the viewscreen for a while. And then I got even more depressed. For some reason, only a single bulletin was aired today and I am not sure how this will be presented at home, but I see it as grim beyond belief. They said that the Jedi have betrayed the Republic and attempted to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine. Somebody called ‘Maise Windy’ is presumed dead, while Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar and Saesee Tiin were killed by the Chancellor himself in an act of self-defence. Anakin Skywalker – that’s a nice name – is missing. Coruscant…I cannot believe I’m even saying this, it sounds so surreal…is under martial law and the Jedi Temple is burning, under a military lockdown. Jedi are now the enemy of the Republic.

A part of me is frightened. Sure, Corellia is far away from Coruscant, relatively speaking, and we’re under that “meditative silence”, but still, I wouldn’t want a war here. Wasn’t there a temple somewhere in the city, in the past? Or is Lor making things up again?

The other part of me, however, is wondering how Lor is feeling right now. If Jedi are frowned upon now, then his little obsession is surely not a good idea?!

Anjie seemed to be upset with this news. This may have been the effect of Lor brainwashing him, or maybe he just idolised Jedi more than, say, limmie stars. Gwynda swallowed a lump as well. Why are they so worried about Lor, all of the sudden? Lor is just a wannabe, it’s not like he’s capable of anything. Something strange is going on here and I don’t get it.

Following all of this, earlier today – whoops, it’s yesterday already - at school, I wasn’t my usual self. The rokna did wear out, but…I remained unnaturally worried and depressed. I checked my eyes in the ‘fresher mirror. I tried to walk on the line on the corridor floor. I am definitely sober. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what could have got Gwynda to change her job and I guess my preoccupation with that is the way to deal with this relationship that isn’t going anywhere and the fact that martial law may arrive to the Sector any given day now.

Zizi helped me put the holocubes together during the lunch break. Or at least I think so. We searched HoloNet to see who actually owns NovaNova and…guess what, it was Blobbo the Hutt! _The one who hired Gwyn in the first place_!

I hope Blobbo and Lor don’t have…plans for Gwynda. And…I can’t even say what I mean by “plans”, the sole thought of it scares me.

Are Human women ever sold into this kind of…service?

Should I be looking out for the likes of Tiodre Geelmen?

Instead of going home, I stayed here, to do some supposed research for history of art classes. But instead of it, I locked myself here in the office and I commed Jax Pavan. He wasn’t returning my calls. Then I commed Dale and he said that I’m being paranoid. According to him, Blobbo probably wanted a beautiful woman as a chief of staff because NovaNova’s been suffering some losses without its rich clientele from outside the Corellian Sector. That would sound like a logical explanation, but still, how would hiring a beautiful woman break all these boundaries set by Garm Bel Iblis’ response to the Clone Wars? Should I take a teenager seriously on this matter? He probably wants every single woman he sees at this point in his life and sees everything through the lens of physical attraction.

Perhaps I should just stop thinking and go home. Or take a sonic here and sleep on the futon in the parents’ waiting room. I suddenly don’t feel safe and I don’t even know why. Does that make me a coward or is it all the spice I used over the years?

Ugh. I so hope the surveillance droids did not hear the last sentence!
    
    
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:50>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>


	15. Entry 15


    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<FAILURE RETRIEVING LOCAL TIME. ARE YOU IN SPACE?>>
    <<FAILURE RETRIEVING GALACTIC LOCATION. ARE YOU IN SPACE?>>

Remember how I had a bad feeling about this, Ranni? Well, I was right - it all came crashing to the ground, pretty much like it always does. It’s me after all. There is one difference from the usual, though: somebody, most likely Them - the Sacorrian Triad themselves - have put a pretty bounty on my head.

I did actually spend the night on that futon, showered at school’s gymnasium and checked on Anjie right before the classes started. He asked me if I was at Korgah’s and I said yes. Then he accused me of lying to him. He almost cried. Apparently, Korgah was looking for me and, on top of it, she spent the night sleeping at Borgiska’s, refusing to leave. I managed to convince him that everything’s fine and that I got carried away reading on all the things that were not readily available to read back at home and I promised that I would take him for sliders, play limmie with him and get us angleberry ice cream. And I did. We had a wonderful day together and Gwynda and Korgah recorded Anjie and me singing Force Save the Chancellor - he and I were wearing their stupid petticoats and Lor’s pseudo-Jedi robes.

<<CRITICAL FAILURE. ARE YOU IN HYPERSPACE?>>

<<SWITCH TO BACK-UP POWER SOURCE Y/N?>>

<<SWITCHING TO BACK-UP POWER SOURCE>>

I woke up in my room next to Korgah, on a school holiday. We turned on the small viewscreen and there was no normal programme once again. Instead of it, they aired a broadcast from the Senate. Thousands of senators were applauding Chancellor Palpatine as he declared himself the Emperor. The news anchor – I could swear she was a Zeltron yesterday, today it was a baseline Human – she ended the report by saying “Long live the Galactic Empire”.

Korgah noticed the same thing I did – that Palpatine looked different. Sure, he wasn’t that Count Dooku Gwyn admitted swooning over, but now he looks like he’s over 200 years old and I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. Just what could have happened to him?

Speaking of the said Dooku, he’s dead. So are all of the Separatists. They were found dead on a volcanic planet close to the edge of the known Galaxy.

How come that everybody other than Palpatine himself didn’t live?

If I was the Force, I would not be saving this man. There is something strange about him. Not that politicians were ever likeable to begin with – except you, Ranni – but he is scarier than Roula of Pelayn herself. And yes, I have weird criteria for what a politician is. And, just like Roula herself, he seems to be eager to get rid of anybody who disagrees with him. For real. All Force-sensitives…in my understanding, those are Jedi-like beings who did not become Jedi, they will be prosecuted, for their ties with the Jedi. Or so the rumour goes, according to this blabber-show that aired after the bulletin.

I sat down to eat with Anjie, Gwyn and Korgah. I suggested that we invite Borgiska to join us and she accepted it. We tried to discuss what was going on, but she advised us not to. I didn’t understand why and she shook her head, saying that there are only so many things that a Sacorrian could understand about politics. I am not sure what she was getting at.

Anjie wanted to take a bath. I promised to take care of that, as Borgiska’s remark made me feel unwanted. I didn’t even want to have a caf with them. 

Just as the women were about to have caf, somebody buzzed at the door. A Theelin woman with orange hair. She was looking for me. I heard Gwyn say that “my ex was looking for me” and, while Korgah was throwing some sort of a jealous fit, I hugged Anjie one last time, told him to just sit there and pretend nothing has happened…then-then I jumped through the bathroom window, then climbed the nearby tree.

Regardless of what I have said about Gwyn previously, she’s incredible. She knew what to say in order to let me know that I was in danger and use Korgah, whom I lied about those numerous girlfriends, as a distraction.

For, you see…the Theelin woman was a bounty hunter. Looking for me!

What happened next was a blur – I hid in dumps near Korgah’s home and ended up sharing a hole I dug for myself with the boy who once bullied Anjie. I gave him some credits to find Korgah and have her bring me at least some of my belongings. That was risky, he could’ve just run away with it. But somehow, he didn’t. I ended up having a shower at Korgah’s, as she had the boy sneak into Gwyn’s home and fill a backpack with everything he could find in my room. Apparently, Gwyn saw him get out, or so she thinks, as she was calming down Anjie, who was crying. If nothing else, the Theelin woman left them alone. And nothing, I repeat nothing was missing from my backpack. In fact, there was an extra: Borgiska’s caf table book about arts. I was close to asking the boy, who still uses a different name each time he speaks to me, to return it, but Korgah ensured me that she’ll buy Borgiska a new one.

The boy had a stolen comm and he managed to get Zizi at school for me. Zizi had an answer to this, which explained a lot, among other things, how he paid that expensive dinner at NovaNova.

This will be heavy, Ranni.

Before we even knew who owned NovaNova, Zizi applied to entertain the guests there. He never told me about his mandoviol for some reason, but he has one and he calls it Midnight Princess. I guess I won’t get to hear him sing in this life, but still, I wish he would have told me about it before, he could have practiced with Anjie. Either way, he entertained Blobbo the Hutt and his henchmen, as well as many important guests, night after night and it was after that waiter, the same Theelin woman who ended up being the bounty hunter looking for me, brought us drink after drink that he got suspicious. Sure, he is not alcohol-sensitive, so I guess he may have seen something that made him cautious. Maybe I mentioned you? By your full name? Either way, despite my disguise, somebody figured me out.

The next thing that happens, Blobbo offers Gwyn a promotion. Initially, she refused and she was, according to Zizi’s source, a NovaNova employee, reluctant to accept it and said that she would like to go back to singing someday, or even something that resembled her job as a young woman on Hapes. But Blobbo presented her with what was essentially a blackmail – he said that something extreme was in the works and that he knew about Anjie. I’m not sure what was there to know about Anjie, other than that his parents are divorced, but I doubt that Blobbo had a connection with Aldo Mencuri and that he was to take Anjie back to Naboo. There have got to have been something far, far worse. This source then told Zizi that Gwynda was suspicious about trading what was apparently her child’s safety for a new job, as the set-up seemed quite bizarre.

The next thing everybody at NovaNova knew, Blobbo the Hutt's henchmen were searching Coronet high and low for a Drall male with Sacorrian accent. Bribing people. This one Selonian sent Zizi a comm message to tell me that they offered him credits in exchange for information and gave a description that matched the one of me. Zizi, bless his heart, offered him more credits not to tell anybody anything. This is where he should have told me about it, but he thought it was a random occurrence, something irrelevant to anybody outside of Corellia.

But he couldn’t have stopped it. Nobody has more credits than Blobbo the Hutt and, whoever offered him an enormous amount of credits to send bounty hunters after me, eventually located me, even with my name and my disguise. And then, Blobbo decided that the best possible moment to catch me was this new, uncertain situation, where everybody was encouraged to report everybody else, for alleged connections with the Jedi. He apparently invited Gwynda to his throne room and told her that he would tick on Lor, regardless of how harmless his Jedi obsession was. She objected and she was told that both Anjie and Lor would be “taken care of” unless she assists in handing me over to the Sacorrian Triad.

Following this, Blobbo…he sent this woman, her name is Latts Razzi, after me. This is where Gwynda reacted the way she did. Sure, she never knew more about me than the story I shared with her on Gus Treta, but she knew that I had nobody other than you before Korgah. Therefore, an “ex” was a clear sign and, thank Sacor, I understood it.

And she somehow got away with it. And got this Latts Razzi in trouble. While she had to explain herself to Blobbo, I had just enough time to have the scoundrel boy pick some of my belongings, this conversation with Zizi and some thirty minutes after I told him goodbye, Korgah made me some food. I managed to evade her animal-like kiss and we just shook hands. I asked her to tell Gwynda to take good care of little Anjie, he’s a fragile, sweet youngling who may be too good for this cruel world. And I asked her, no, I begged her to make sure that she visits Borgiska at least once per week. I wanted to tell her to tell Zizi to leave Corellia, as Blobbo would figure him out sooner or later, but Dale Pavan was waiting in his speeder. I said one last goodbye to Korgah and the boy-of-many-names and hopped in.

Jax waited for us at the spaceport. He arranged himself a trip to Talfaglio and then, on his return, he’s going to drop me at whatever planet he thinks I’ll be safe at. The route to Talfaglio is surprisingly slow, for some reason, makes me wonder if this is some barely known smugglers’ lane. What is Jax doing for life, anyway?

And where am I going, Ranni?

Is there any question that won’t lead me to a whole starfield of new questions?

Is there any being whose life I won’t change for worse?

Is there a place for me in the world of the living?
    
    
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

That was such a lucky escape. And I know something about lucky escapes! And I can see how Mencuri ended up as messed up as he is. This Drall was almost like a foreshadowing, next to pointing the Man-Cure to his future profession.

Now, if General Han Solo makes it, it would be funny if somebody ever asked him about helping this li'l Lil. It can't be anybody other than him! The street kid screams "I'm Han Solo!"


End file.
